Examining University Lecturers’ Pedagogical Readiness for EMI: An Ecological Perspective

Abstract

In response to Vietnam’s English-as-a-Second-Language policy, the development of university lecturers’ pedagogical readiness for English-medium instruction (EMI) has been provided with greater attention. Existing EMI research in Vietnam, however, has largely conceptualized readiness as an individual matter, primarily emphasizing lecturers’ language proficiency and pedagogical competence through survey-based or perception-oriented approaches (Ngo, 2019. Tri and Moskovsky, 2019. Vo, 2023. Vu and Burns, 2014). Such perspectives may overlook the complex realities in which EMI is enacted in higher education. This study, drawing on an ecological perspective, reconceptualizes pedagogical readiness as a situated and contextually mediated process shaped by interacting factors across policy, institutional, pedagogical, and classroom domains. Adopting a qualitative multi-site case study design, the study employs semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, post-observation reflections, and policy or institutional documents to examine how lecturers negotiate EMI practices across different higher education settings in Vietnam...